Because of the Internet and other advances in telecommunications and broadcasting, we have become a world of nations divided by ideology instead of nations divided by borders. You can’t “storm the beaches” of the ideas that are contrary to yours.

Being Literate Means being a Digital Detective

This is actually something that I’ve thought about for quite a few years and the reason I spent the last 15 years trying to convince teachers to redefine literacy.

The fact is that we believe what we read on the Internet, because we were taught to believe what we read. Our schooling was purposely limited to textbooks, compelling (and not so compelling) lectures and library resources selected by librarians with advanced education. We try to limit our students’ learning to what is reliably accurate. As a result, our notion of what it is to be literate is limited. Can you “read and understand what someone, who you trust, has handed you to read.” ..and can you answer questions about it on a test?

In my efforts, I respelled the 3 Rs with 3 Es. Instead of teaching children to read, we should be helping them learn to Expose what is true. To expose what is true, you must learn to read it. But being able to search for, find and synthesize the information, and select that which is most appropriate to your situation, has become just as critical as being able to read it.

I use to suggest to teachers that they should, at every occasion, ask their students, “How do you know that’s true?” I added that students should be free to ask their teachers, “How do you know that’s true?” I suspect that if political candidates were regularly asked, “How do you know that?” and we demanded answers, our leadership might be quite different.

The other Es were:

Learning to Employ information, instead just teaching students to calculate numbers

Learning to Express Ideas Compelling, instead of just teaching students to write a coherent paragraph

There was a 4th E – exposing, employing and expressing information with respect for and devotion to what is true, Ethically using information to answer question, solve problems and accomplish goals.

A 15 year old Canadian schoolboy, with a fascination for the ancient Mayan Civilization, recently theorized a correlation between the star positions in major constellations and the geographic locations of known Mayan cities. Based on this theory, he used Google Maps to suggest the location of an unknown ancient city. The Canadian Space Agency was so impressed that they used a satellite-based space telescope to study the spot and confirm the existence of the hitherto, unknown city.

In my work I ran across many ordinary youngsters who — with access to technology, supportive teachers and unconstrained curiosity — did extraordinary things. It all begs for a more empowering and imaginative way of educating our children.

97% of scientific papers written by climate scientists state the position that global warming is caused by human activity. This is not a secret.1 Yet, according to a 2008 Gallup Poll,2 questioning people in 128 countries, only 49% of U.S. citizens believe what these scientists are telling us. That’s a smaller portion of the population than 86 other countries.3

My point is this. What we typically think of as literacy and what’s taught in schools, needs to expand. In the age of Internet, social media and 24 hour news, literacy is no long just the ability to read and comprehend. It is equally critical that the literate be skilled and inclination to detect if what they are reading is intended to inform their behavior, or manipulate it.

Many would disagree, but I believe that the introduction of new information and communication technologies into our classrooms has had a productively disruptive effect on education. We have certainly not seen its full potential, and reaching it may well be impossible for a human society. But I’ve recently wondered about a new disruptive influencer on the horizon, one that has the potential to further progress formal education – or destroying it – in my humble opinion.

Consider that even though some presidential candidates have promised to bring back the manufacturing jobs that America has lost to China, the jobs that actually left our shores are a mere ripple, as Matthew Yglesias put it in a recent MoneyBox article,1 compared to the manufacturing jobs we lost to robots during the same years – and those jobs will not return.

And now we have driverless cars, just around the corner? Sam Tracy, in a 2015 Huffington Post article itemized the numbers of Americans who make their living by driving: taxi drivers, chauffeurs, bus drivers, driver-sales workers, school bus drivers, postal service carriers, light truck deliveries and heavy truck transport. It totaled almost four million jobs, with wages of almost $150 billion a year.

Will there really be new jobs for them to train for?

Then entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Sam Altman, says this in a recent Freakonomics podcast, that, “..90% of (the) people (may) go smoke pot and play video games, but if (only) 10% of the people go create incredible new products and services and new wealth, that’s still a huge net-win.”2 In other words, is there a national economic need for 100% employment in the near future, or even 15% employment – besides what Altman refers to as a “..puritanical ideal that hard work for its own sake is valuable.”

All this is to suggest that the job of schools, sooner than later, may be to educate our children to be unemployed. Consider the recent media interest in the concept of basic income. Here is a Google Trend graph of the frequency of the term’s searches.

In the most general terms, basic income would have the federal government handing out to all citizens enough money to live on. Those who want more would work for a wage. Those who do not, would find some other way of spending their time. Experiments are already underway in Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland & the UK.

Even though I suggest an open mind, I do not want to spend this blog post arguing the merits or dangers of such an arrangement. What I do want to ask is, “What would you say to a student who says, ‘I don’t need to know this because I don’t need a job?’” What if he is absolutely right? The next question is “What would he or she need to know for a future that does not require employment?” and “How might preparing our children for productive leisure change the WHY, WHAT and HOW of formal education?”

2 Weller, C. (2016, April 19). A Silicon Valley entrepreneur says basic income would work even if 90% of people smoked weed instead of working [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.techinsider.io/sam-altman-praises-basic-income-on-freakonomics-podcast-2016-4

When I taught Middle School Social Studies in the 1970s, I used a five-year-old textbook, a few old maps and globe, which predated WWII, a well managed but tiny school library and two stacks of ancient National Geographic Magazines, inherited from my grandparents and cut to pieces for the pictures. The New York Public Library’s upcoming release of 180,000 documents to the digital public domain is a small contribution to the vast infoscape that we learn in today. I taught with information scarcity. Today’s teachers teach in information abundance. This dramatically changes how we teach, what education looks like, and even what it means to be educated.

I have decided to elevate my response to Benjamin Meyers’ recent comment to a blog post. He mostly agreed with my sentiments over the demise of No Child Left Behind, with his personal experience of test-prepping high school students for the ACT. It was his first teaching job and it was what he was hired to do.

I certainly found incredible resistance and boredom from the students. It seemed like the harder I tried to teach the test to my students, the more they hated the subject of science. Indeed, high stakes’ testing has a nasty way of creating negative feelings toward school in students.

Indeed, it seems that the more we seem to care about our children knowing the answers, the less they seem to care about the questions.

But then, Meyers put forth a relevant challenge,

NCLB was created for a reason. Our schools seem to be lagging behind in performance compared to the rest of the world. This in spite of the amount of money that we spend on education and the number of hours that our students spend in the school building. If we are not going to improve education through legislation such as NCLB, then what is the best policy adjustment that our country can make that will actually make a difference?

But were our schools lagging behind? The scientific research that we never saw was the proof that a generation who could pass tests could, as a result, prosper in a world and time of rapid change.

Were the the countries that were out performing us on tests, also out performing us in the real world?

Of the 32 countries who topped us in the Science PISA test, in 2012, only 7 ranked above the U.S. in the “World Happiness Report,” compiled regularly by an international team of economists, neuroscientists and statisticians. They were Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Denmark.1

I’m not saying that our schools were good enough in 1999. They weren’t, and they left many, many children behind. But to improve education in the U.S., we need to rethink what it is to be educated. Being an educated person is no long based on what you know, as much as it is what you can resourcefully learn and what you can inventively do with what you can learn. The job of the science teacher is to help students learn to think like scientists and to care about science – and even want to become scientists. The same for other disciplines.

Once we understand what we need to be doing for our children, as a society, then we need to pay for the very best ways of accomplishing it. Personally, I don’t think we’re paying enough to our teachers and for the infrastructure required to prepare our children for their future. I also do not believe that our children need to spend as much time in classrooms as they do. Learning is not as place-based as it use to be.

Four hours in school a day and redefine homework.

1 Brodwin, E. (2015, April 23). The happiest countries in the world, according to neuroscientists, statisticians and economists. Business Insider. Retrieved December 18, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/new-world-happiness-report-2015-2015-4

In my new situation of retired educator (or semi-retired educator. I can’t really decide), I find myself paying less attention to Twitter and more to friends and relatives on Facebook. But this morning, when I started my computer and Twitteriffic flashed up, I scanned through the most recent tweets from my long-time and famous educator friends – and my eye landed on one by Doug Peterson actually a retweet of Miguel Guhlin’s,

The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher is a March 25 article in The Atlantic written by Michael Godsey, a “veteran high-school English educator.” Asked by a college student about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, he writes,

I never think it’s enough to say that the role is shifting from “content expert” to “curriculum facilitator.” Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation’s most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The “virtual class” will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country’s best teachers (a.k.a. a “super-teacher”), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record.

To that, I say, “poppycock!” How’s that for post-career reflection and rejection of the ideals that I seemingly promoted for the last 20+ years? But the fact is that I never promoted such a future for the classroom and find the arrangement to be personally revolting and counter-productive to what I believe the purpose of education to be.

It’s an interesting question and one that many of us have challenged ourselves and each other with, “What is the purpose of school.” Here’s a good answer, in my opinion – Why School by Will Richardson and what is described in Invent To Learn, by Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager. But here is my ready answer that is short and to the point.

The purpose of school is to prepare our children for adult life during the next 70 to 80 years.

Life doesn’t happen on a video screen and it can’t be simulated with a game. Goddey’s “fantastic computer screen” will help as will the games and video clips from top thinkers on TED. In fact, they are essential. But the fallacy is the assumption and fear that technology replaces the teacher.

To be sure, nobody in education, but those in the darkest recesses of denial, believes that the role of the teacher is not changing. The shift from “content expert” to “curriculum facilitator” is certainly happening – and it should. But NOTHING, my most loyal readers, IS EVER THAT SIMPLE.

A phrase like “sage on the stage to guide on the side” is intended as an idiom to focus the attention of experienced professional educators who already grasp the changing conditions that are reshaping school. It is not an all-encompassing description of the future of classroom instruction. Frankly, while reading Godsey’s advice to his student, I saw no need for classrooms at all – and that’s the last thing I’d want to see for my grandchildren and their children.

We have to acknowledge that there is a powerful cabal that desires and promotes just the scenario described by Mr. Godsey. They fancy an education system that spends its billions on their videos, games, tutorials and assessment products, instead of unionized public school teachers. Products, whose service can be measured (test scores), can be marketed.

In my mind the most preposterous statement in the whole article is the advice of a superintendent, aired on NPR, “If you can Google it, why teach it?” ..and this gets back to the question, “What is the purpose of school?” If education’s objective is to equip our children with facts that they can recall on state test day, then I would agree with the superintendent’s statement. But if its purpose is to prepare our children for adult life, then the job of the teacher is to help learners to understand what they’ve Googled and develop the essential literacy skills and habits of questioning, analyzing and assigning context to the Googled information.

What we can predict about life in the next 70 to 80 years is almost nothing, beyond the timeless practices of responsibility, compassion and providing value to the community. It will continue to be a time of rapid change, inventions that redefine how we accomplish our goals and discoveries that challenge our beliefs and philosophies.

The common core subject of every classroom today should be learning to learn.

And this brings us back around to Michael Godsey’s apparent fear that his college earned knowledge of literature has become obsolete. Our classrooms still require experts. But experts today are no longer known for knowing all there is to know about a subject.

Today’s experts are known for being highly skilled at learning and relearning the ever growing and often changing knowledge about their subject.

This is the notion of expertise that teachers need to model and that students need to see every day, the essential and constant practice of contextual learning-skills / learning-literacies.

In my efforts to write this book about the history of educational technology (as I have witnessed it), I’m finding myself doing more reading than writing. I guess that’s normal for book-writing, though it surprises me since I am typing this mostly from my own recollections.

This morning, in my reading, I learned a new word. It’s mesofacts. These are facts that, when learned, seem to be dependable, longterm and applicable truths – when in fact, they are likely to change within a lifetime, and often within a few years.

In his Harvard Business Review article, Be Forwarned: Your Knowledge is Decaying Samuel Arbesman relates an example, a hedge fund manager saying in a conversation, “Since we all know that there are 4 billion people on the planet…” 4 billion people is what I learned when I was in school, and it still surprises me when I heard that it was up to 6 billion and now 7 billion.

Arbesman says that these mesofacts are far more common than we realize. It makes me wonder about how much of what we are expecting our students to memorize, will simply not be true in their adulthood, and may even be problematic.

This all supports something that I heard someone say a few years ago.

Any question, whose answer can be googled, should not be on any test.

Another epiphanic statement, which may or may not be attributable to John Dewey is,

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s,we rob them of their tomorrow.

Another word I learned is scientometrics. Its the study of the shape of how knowledge grows and spreads through a population.

In 1993, while I was working at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and exploring the educational potentials of the, then emerging, Internet, I ran across an intriguing and inspiring summer project being conducted at Maricopa Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.

With the local school district, they invited a diverse group of students who would be entering fourth, fifth or sixth grades (all at-risk of failure) into a MUD or Multi-User Domain. Essentially, a MUD is a text-based virtual environment. Think SecondLife where the environment is read about, instead of seen graphically.

This particular MUD was empty, flat asphalt. These students, some of whom you couldn’t get to write their names in a classroom, were challenged to create a virtual city in the MUD, by learning a simple programming language and describing its buildings, parks and their own virtual homes, in all their richness, with words.

At the end of the project, I invited a number of the organizers and volunteers to a virtual office I was maintaining at MIT’s MediaMOO, where my avatar was known as Peiohpah. There I interviewed the team about their experience. I had acquired a virtual video camera, which recorded the exchanges.

Here is a portion of that interview played back on Pei’s TV.

[on Pei's TV] ***********************************
[on Pei's TV] ** C a m p M a r i M U S E **
[on Pei's TV] ** An Interview with the staff **
[on Pei's TV] ** of the first virtual **
[on Pei's TV] ** Computer Camp **
[on Pei's TV] ***********************************
[on Pei's TV]
[on Pei's TV] . . . the camera pans left to right over
Pei's Studio
[on Pei's TV] A cozy corner with two comfortable sofas
arranged for conversation in front of a large
picture of a schoolhouse. Curiously, the
walls of the schoolhouse appear to be
transparent. There is a copy of Tuesday's
*New York Times* on an end table.
[on Pei's TV] Lila smiles at the camera
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "I'm here with a few friends today
to talk about a project that they have been
involved in this summer, Camp MariMUSE. I
call them friends although I have never met
them face-to-face, and don't even know the
sounds of their voices. Yet I have
profoundly enjoyed their companionship by
interacting not only with their words, but
with their imaginations, and -- most
importantly to this interview -- with their
innovation."
[on Pei's TV] Pei turns to the rest of the group.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Hi, Pei"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon looks toward Pei, pleased to be
here.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Why don't we start with my guests
introducing them selves."
[on Pei's TV] Woody waves to TV land
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K giggles
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, ""I am Lila on the MariMuse, a
volunteer for the project. I am a student
at Phoenix college, a returning student"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "I am Billie Hughes aka Avalon
on MariMUSE. I worked with the team that
first brought Muse to Phoenix College."
[on Pei's TV] Pei senses that another member of the
MariMUSE team is looking for them and
disappears suddenly for parts unknown.
[on Pei's TV] Lila waits for Pei to return
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "I am Miss-K on the Muse, and
Susan Oram in RL (Real life) -- the school
librarian at Longview Elementary School. "
[on Pei's TV] Pei has arrived.
[on Pei's TV] Wlad materializes out of thin air.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Hi Wlad!"
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "I am Rod Brashear, Woody on
Marimuse. I am a student at Arizona State
Universtiy-West and also work for the
Arizona Department of Education. I
volunteered to be involved with the Longview
project."
[on Pei's TV] Lila waves to Wlad, and thinks she has seen
him before "
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Hi, Wlad"
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Wlad, would you introduce
yourself?"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "Hi, and I am Jim Walters. I
work at Pheonix College and am intensely
interested in this medium."
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Is that everyone?"
[on Pei's TV] Lila thinks that is all for the moment,
Platoon will join us later"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "Thanks"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon turns toward Pei,anticipating a
question."
[on Pei's TV] Pei reads from his clipboard, then faces
Avalon.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Avalon, would you begin by
explaining how Camp MariMUSE came to be?"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "Wlad and I were in the library
one day when the Dean walked in. We were
excited about what Muse was doing for our
college students. She suggested we do a
summer camp for kids."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "We jumped at the chance and
the rest is history."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "Avalon had heard a rumor that
Joanne, the principal at Longview, might be
supportive of a technology linked proposal.
So we set out to meet with her."
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "wlad and Av planted a seed and
didn't realize how big the tree would be.
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "...and still growing!"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "it's rather like falling into
the rabbit's hole with Alice."
[on Pei's TV] Pei grins with understanding
[on Pei's TV] Lila laughs at the rabbit hole analogy
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "So it began as an environment for
college student?"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "We did try to start with the
basis that it could accommodate learners of
all ages."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "But college students were the
group we began with because that was the
group we had access to."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "We tried it first with our own
students, but always dreamed of a huge one
room school for learners of all ages."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "The dream is starting to come
true, isn't it?"
[on Pei's TV] Lila nods agreement
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "We took some risks in bringing
in some of our own students, then to try to
offer a class entirely in this environment."
[on Pei's TV] Pei turns to Miss-K.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Miss-K, Could you describe some
of the landmarks of MariMUSE that your
campers saw when they first entered the
MUSE?"
[on Pei's TV] Woody notices sweat on the brow of Miss-k.
[on Pei's TV] Lila hands Miss-K a tissue
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K smiles sickly!
[on Pei's TV] Pei reaches over and touches Miss-K's hand!
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Well, we went to Lady
Starlight's castle first. "
[on Pei's TV] Pei's eyes widen with excitement.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "We also visited some of the
places the first group of campers had
created. Also, Some of the campers spent
quite a lot of time in an amusement park."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "A couple of the volunteers had
created a space station that was the initial
home of all the Longview campers."
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Tell me about the students who
participated in Camp MariMUSE?"
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "Do you want a feel for what
they were like in RL, when they entered the
room?"
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, “Yes!"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon sits back listening to those who were
with the children the most to talk.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Well, it was quite a mixed
group of children. Our school is very
multi-ethnic and those groups were
represented at the camp."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon looks at Miss-K remembering just how
diverse the group really was.
[on Pei's TV] Lila remembers being surprised at the young
ages.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "The kids were all going into
the fourth, fifth or sixth grade.”
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "The children who attended were
children who were definitely at-risk for
failure in school either because of their
back grounds or skills. They were chosen by
the teachers at Longview on the basis of who
we thought might benefit the most. "
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "The first day of camp was an
exciting day. Students had heard exciting
rumors and were very eager, with a bit of
confusion and trepidation, to come to a
college and work with the MUSE."
[on Pei's TV] Platoon materializes out of thin air.
[on Pei's TV] Platoon says, "HI Pei, sorry I interrupted"
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Platoon, my man! gime five!"
[on Pei's TV] Platoon ^5's Pei
[on Pei's TV] Platoon sits back and listens
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "The first couple of days the
children were very quite and shy. After the
comfort level was attained the kids were
conversing in the muse and RL with real
excitement and interest"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "They seemed very young, and shy
and seemed to be wondering why they were
here, but then they got started began having
fun."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K nods.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "How did the students first
approach the text-based virtual environment?
What was their early reaction?”
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "On the first day, I heard
whispers of, "This is dumb." By the end of
the first session, all the campers agreed it
was about the coolest thing they had ever
done.”
[on Pei's TV] Lila recalls the excitement of the children
when they left for the bus, how anxious they
were to come back the second day."
[on Pei's TV] Lila recalls how quickly the children became
conscious of correct spelling"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "I had worried that the ones who
couldn't keyboard might become discouraged
and quit, but they just hung in and their
skills kept improving."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Even this morning some kids
were asking about getting back on the system
so they wouldn't lose their keyboarding
skills."
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Those of you who were volunteers,
how did you assist the campers and what sort
of impact did this experience have on you
personally?"
[on Pei's TV] Platoon says, "My best the very best
experience I had was when I started paging
some of the campers and ask them if they
need help...and they responded where are
you...and i said that I am kinda far away
from you...they couldn't imagine that "
[on Pei's TV] Lady Starlight materializes out of thin air.
[on Pei's TV] Platoon says, "I thought that was so cool to
have to convince them that I am about 20
miles away from them”
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "She was having difficulty with
him being in the same virtual room with
her."
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "To build on Platoon's comments,
one child initially refused to believe a
volunteer was really in California."
[on Pei's TV] Pei smiles
[on Pei's TV] Lady Starlight says, "And another looked for
a volunteer in the disk drive."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad ecalls one student looking in the disk
drive slot trying to see Angus."
[on Pei's TV] Pei laughs and laughs and laughs
[on Pei's TV] Lila laughs at the remembrance
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "What, exactly,
did the MariMUSE campers do on a daily
basis?"
[on Pei's TV] Woody pulls out his muse curriculum daily
guide.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "every day the students were
asked to complete a journal entry. They
also wrote at least one article per week for
the newsletter. They were also responsible
for doing some creating in the MUSE."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad recalls some of the homework and how
serious the students were about getting
together their descriptions and setting
their character names.
[on Pei's TV] Azure_Guest says, "What amazed me was that
they were so unwilling to leave for break."
[on Pei's TV] Woody adds that they felt three hours was
too short of a day on the muse.
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "Do you remember how Ginji would
go home, make her sister help her research
so the cave could be exactly what she
wanted?
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "At the end of the first week,
the students were wanting to come in over
the weekend..”
[on Pei's TV] Lady Starlight says, "They were all very
proud of their work."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Ginji wears her Phoenix
College t-shirt often."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "Above all, we learned that
this medium was exciting to students, it
captivated them despite its text-base. And,
they could handle the coding. They were
reading and writing for 3 hours a day,
thinking and problem solving, and loving
it."
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "It taped the intrinsic
motivation of all the persons connected to
the program. Students Teachers, and
volunteers."
[on Pei's TV] Pei nods.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Have the kids come back to school
yet? If so, what are they saying about the
MUSE now?"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Everyday I am asked, WHEN can
I come back on line?"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "The children are eager to get
back on-line and are stating that they have
projects to work on, and they really want to
check their mail."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "I called all the MUSE kids
into the library this morning and they were
all talking at once. They did not want to
leave to go back to class."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "We believe we are just seeing
the tip of the iceberg. We believe we are
on the wave of the future. This medium is a
window to a new way of learning."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon looks at Miss-K remembering the child
who said, “You don't think I am stupid, do
you?”
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "The kids are so proud of the
NY Times article. They all want copies of
it."
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "How did the parents react to Camp
MariMUSE?"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "We had an enormous turn out on
the parent day. We were amazed. The
parents are especially proud of their
children. I think it raises their self-
esteem too."
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "Many parents had to take off
work, with no pay, to attend any function to
which they were invited. Such as
graduation"
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "Some even rode over on the
school bus to be here."
[on Pei's TV] Woody says, "When the parents first met with
us, PC volunteers and Wlad, There was a very
small turn out. After the camp was over
there was almost 100 percent parent
participation."
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "Running Wind's parents went to
great lengths to attend graduation, they
VERY proud of him and his accomplishments."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "And parents who had never heard
their children talk about what they were
doing at school were getting rave reviews
and daily updates on the camp activities."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "We invited the superintendent
who was amazed at the children's creativity
and the amount of writing they did. We also
invited state representatives who felt the
excitement. And we had parents who knew
their kids were really excited about and
successful with learning."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "On graduation day, it really
felt like one big family celebration."
[on Pei's TV] Wlad laughs remembering how he helped
Running wind entertain two of his
younger relatives.
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "Remember, this was only a 3
week camp. All of this happened in 3 short
weeks."
[on Pei's TV] Lila shakes her head, and says, "Hard to
believe we did all that in 3 weeks."
[on Pei's TV] Pei 's heart is full!
[on Pei's TV] Woody throws time out the door.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Were there any real surprises?"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "It seemed like a magical
time."
[on Pei's TV] Lady Starlight nods.
[on Pei's TV] Lila says, "I was very impressed with the
increase in global awareness."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "I was blown away by the
research that the students initiated!"
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "One of the other teachers
committed this week about how important it
was for these kids to see the volunteers
from the college working at their jobs,
volunteering, and going to class. It
helped them see they could go to college
too."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "It was a time of being
completely accepted."
[on Pei's TV] Avalon grins at Miss-K.
[on Pei's TV] Platoon says, "it was a time of beeing
equal"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K says, "Actually, I still get misty
eyed about it. "
[on Pei's TV] Avalon hands an embroidered hankie to Miss-K.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K giggles
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "What plans do you have for the
future of MariMUSE?”
[on Pei's TV] Avalon has been assigned to work on grant
writing and assessment so we can continue
and can learn as we proceed into the future.
This is a major commitment from the college
to a very important project.
[on Pei's TV] Woody boogies about the future.
[on Pei's TV] Wlad says, "By the 15th of September, we
should have 12 terminals installed at
Longview for the students to use. There
will be a 9600 baud modem line to the
college. We know that the equipment will
work with that speed. We want something
that will work right away, so that we can
get the kids back on-line."
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K squeals in delight
[on Pei's TV] Pei applauds
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K will never get anything done once
those terminals are in!
[on Pei's TV] Pei rolls in the floor laughing
[on Pei's TV] Avalon grins and grins and grins with
excitement about the future.
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K wrings her hands thinking of so much
to do and so little time.
[on Pei's TV] Avalon says, "We have very strong support
from the Longview, Phoenix College and the
district offices to continue and build on
this."
[on Pei's TV] Pei looks at his watch and turns back to the
camera.
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Viewers...I am speechless!"
[on Pei's TV] Miss-K smiles
[on Pei's TV] Pei says, "Except to say that I am deeply
moved by these people and what they have
accomplished this summer. It is impossible
to know all the consequences of how they and
the experiences they have provided have
touched the lives of a handful of children
this summer. Or how the technologies and
techniques they are pioneering will effect
lives in the future. But my bet is that it’s
enormous.”
[on Pei's TV] From MediaMOO, this is Peiohpah saying "good
night!"

In re-reading this interview I was struck by four ideas.

The campers were engage in self-directed learning, because they were doing something with what they were learning.

Their enthusiasm had nothing to do with slick graphics and booming sound effects. It was text.

The campers were working hard, though they might not have called it work. Students who are engaged in this type of learning experience often call it, “Hard play.”

There seems to be a direct relationship between learner-engagement and parent-engagement.

One of the challenges of writing a history of educational technology is that so much of it happened before the Internet. I have been surprised and disappointed at how much of it, that I barely remember, has never been reported on the now ubiquitous World Wide Web.

As a result, I’ve had to be resourceful in my research, and one of the tools that I’ve found myself going to again and again is Google’s Ngram viewer. Here’s the situation. I’m writing about happenings just after I left the NC Department of Public Instruction and discovering that my future is going to be in training and presenting, instead of Web design and development. I believe that it was during this time when the term “Integrate technology’ was being adopted by ed tech advocates. But I’m not sure. How do I determine, on a timeline, the growing use and abuse of the term.

Click to Enlarge

Enter Ngram Viewer. The default terms are Albert Einstein, Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein. The viewer presents a line chart, illustrating the number of Google digitized books that mention the term by year, from 1500 to 2008. The default shows the gradual growth of Frankenstein from just after the publishing of Mary Shelley’s book (1818), and then a more rapid rise of Sherlock Holmes starting in the final years of the 19th century. Occurrences of Albert Einstein started in the second quarter of the 20th century and then Frankenstein, again, overtakes and surges well above, starting in the 1960s – possibly as a result of television’s re-running of Frankenstein movies released in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Entering the term, “integrate technology into the classroom,” into Ngram Viewer, I learn that, although the term started to appear in the late 1980s, its popular use started to rise in the mid-1990s, as we left the growing number of education technology conferences with our new mantra, “Integrate Technology! Integrate Technology! Integrate Technology!”